The Uprising
by Wrin Chikaya
Summary: Prequel to Purity of Essence; please read and review, especially those asking me questions about what happened before PoE did!
1. Plastic Trinkets

The Uprising  
[By Wriness Chikaya ][1]

Chapter 1 - Plastic Trinkets

_**"So I walked upon high and I stepped to the edge, to see my world alone. And I laughed to myself, while the tears roll down, 'cos it's the world I know, Oh it's the world I know." **_

The day was dingy, and gray. Tiredly overcast, the sky's pixeled clouds cut through the simulated sunshine like hanging curtains over a window. Dot rubbed her eyes with the sleeve of her suit. She was tired. Her limbs felt as if they hung off of her, her muscles coiled like springs. The wrinkles in the corner of her mouth were becoming more pronounced as her smile became faded with lack of use. The second had been tiring, and she was looking forward to unwinding and relaxing in a bubble bath after work. Since Enzo wasn't living with her anymore, she had all the time in the world to be completely useless at her own leisure.

Her shoes hit the flooring with a metal-on-metal clack as she padded her way down the long corridor to her quarters. The headset was thrown haphazardly into the corner, her utility belt following suit nearly as violently, and her organizer nearly knocked over the lamp. She slumped against the wall, feeling worn out. Hollow. She blew her breath out through pursed lips, feeling the emptiness left by stress refill with the satisfaction of a second's work and a job well done. She smiled to herself, her weathered cheeks and beginning wrinkles smoothing out briefly, her red lips framing her mouth in a mockery of a smile. She tried. 

Feeling lighter from the lack of tools, Dot dragged her zip board to her exit from the Principal Office. It floated lightly in the air as she stood on it, the board used as a common form of transportation within Mainframe. The board hummed and vibrated slightly underneath her boots, carrying her speedily through the towers, among most of which were under her control. Nobody could understand how she worked herself to the bone day after day after day, without respite or break. She simply laughed, and carried on. 

As with all things, it started with a day off. She went to bed after her bath, knowing she wouldn't have to get up early the next day to perform duties as Command.Com for the rest of the system. It was a noble job, but she had an empire to rule. Being corporate queen of society had its perks, as did being friends with the former Command.Com. Phong had volunteered to cover for her, without letting her get a word in edgewise about whether or not she was getting the day off in the first place. It was this thought which perforated her dreams that night, at least until they were cut short. 

A vidwindow gleamed its imposing front in her face. She woke with a start. 

"GAK! Phong! Oh! It's .. You!" She hurriedly preened herself in an attempt to look a tad more presentable to her mentor. "Uh. Uh," Dot swore under her breath for not being coherent enough to ad-lib something intelligent. She supposed that's what she got for being awake less than thirty nanos. 

"My pardons, my child. Have I awakened you?" The old sprite chirped. Dot snarled inwardly. He'd likely been awake since some ungodly early cycle in the second. Dot's vindictive temper was showing through lack of sleep. She checked herself professionally. This was neither the time, nor the place. 

"It's alright, Phong, I was planning on getting up soon anyway," She smiled, a plastic smile, a face mask used early in the morning when she'd rather just grab an energy shake and snarl at anyone near her. She stretched, almost catlike. "What's on your mind?" 

"Oh, yes, yes. That. I thought I would mention to you a finding I have discovered in the cycle last, would you like to venture over to the Principal Office to see?"

By then, Dot's curiosity was piqued. She sat straight up in bed and stared Phong directly in the face. Watching old movies and having popcorn fights with Bob could wait. "I'll be there within the microsecond." 

Phong's slim fingers clicked delicately against the panel as Dot pored over the information displayed in a curious font next to the map of Mainframe's centers. "Wow," she purred. "The Twin City's citizen profiles." 

"I thought you would be interested, my child. I have only yet begun to peruse all of them." 

"Phong, this is .. such an honor. The history.. of .. I feel like a historian," Dot whispered, as she felt the memories of the Twin City's inhabitants deserved the respect of silence. 

"Dot, dear.. this is for you. And only you." 

She took a deep breath, and pressed the 'open' command. A list of names appeared in front of her. "Where to start..." she breathed. 

An inclination seized her, and she scrolled through the list of names. Matrix. Matrix. Matrix. Matrix. Names. Her family. 

She tapped her finger on the panel as she watched the profile pages float past, in perfectly written HTML. The strange font outlined funny squares and triangles, but somehow formed the alphabet. She read out hers and her brother's profiles, mother, father, initialization date, compilation information, home page, baby pictures, et cetera, et cetera. She browsed her information slowly, painstakingly. Every detail matched the details kept in Mainframe, with the exception of the baby pictures, and some details about their childhood. Very little was salvaged from the Twin City when it was destroyed. The city's records had been corrupted and the disks with the information on them had been brought to Mainframe for the new beginning, in hopes that someone would manage to retrieve the information from the mangled wreckage. The idea remained that, perhaps if one knew what had caused the accidents, one would be able to prevent them. 

Dot perused her files and her brother's, reminiscing about their childhoods while staring at the pictures, her fingers lovingly caressing their chubby green cheeks and sporadic tooth distribution. She smiled gently, and a tear ran down her face as she pressed the name just above hers on the list. 

Dr. Welman Matrix. 

A page loaded, this time in a different font. In blue. Rounded, not all square and cornery like the other font. This was a much older font, from many hours ago. She ran her finger over it tiredly.. and read. 

And read. 

And read. 

Soon she noticed that Phong had left the room, and her in silence. She prayed to User thanks for the things she'd seen. For the solace of knowing her father. 

But what of her mother? 

She pressed the green name on the list, wondering vaguely what green signified, considering that most of the names were either red or blue, as in mainframe. The answer to her question stared her directly in the face, in the same swirly letters her father's file had been coded in. The letters blinked at her. Where most of the others' profiles had stated race?=binome or race?=sprite, her mother's variable setting was ... 

Dot's breath caught in her throat in awe. 

The file read race?=user. 

Phong hummed in. "I thought you would be surprised at that, my child." 

"Surprised?!" Dot's amazement betrayed her. "Surprised doesn't _cover_ it! How.. how is that possible?" 

Phong motioned for Dot to follow him towards one of his hidden rooms. She obeyed blankly, all will lost in shock. He hummed up to a wall and tapped it three times. 

"Denim pillowcase," he bellowed, and the wall opened obediently. It was a small, egg-shaped room, covered in a velvety material and furnished with overstuffed fuzzy couches. "This .. this .." Phong collected his thoughts. "This is where I come to think. You may use this room at your leisure." 

Dot wasn't sure what to make of it. She didn't think she'd need somewhere to think, and then slowly it dawned on her that sometimes, being Command.Com meant having people after you all second. She would come to want sanctuary from the outside. 

"User..." Dot breathed. This wasn't anything she'd ever imagined. She blinked several times, trying to clear the bleary dream from her horizon of vision. Or so it seemed. Was this a dream? She asked herself over and over. Phong just nodded knowingly and patted her on the back. 

"Dot, dear. You shall be alright. This is an exciting discovery, the idea that one of our leaders could possibly be part user! Amazing. Simply amazing." Phong hummed away with a little chuckle, as if enjoying some kind of private joke. Dot could only sit in the middle of the orange-aired sanctuary room, wondering at her fate. 

Quickly, she snapped to her senses and bounded out of the room. She closed the wall again and bolted off after Phong, nearly slipping on the smooth floor. "Phong!" She yelled. "Phong! Come back!"

But it was futile. Phong just hummed away smiling to himself about the new user. The old sage was a trial at times, and this was one of them. Dot simply shuffled out of the Principal Office with a mild look of shock lingering on her face from her discovery. Little did she notice the guard binome standing beside the echoing hallway who had heard everything. 

And little did she notice the distasteful sneer he cast over his shoulder at her as he hopped on a zip board to tell his comrades. 

--  
[Read Chapter 2][2]  
  
Comments, suggestions, and oh do I love hate mail.   
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	2. Silent and Violent

The Uprising  
[By Wriness Chikaya][1]

Chapter 2 - Silent and Violent 

**_"The world is not my problem. I am the world."_**

Running. She was running. Running harder, faster, longer... she felt the sweat bead and drip down her forehead, stinging her eyes worse than the tears were. Her chest was becoming heavy.. her legs like lead. She ran further, the blackness tearing the world apart behind her, a shadow swallowing objects in its wake and path. She dared turn her head around to see what it was that chased her so relentlessly, and it was then that she faced her demise-- metal fingers reached out and crushed her, dragging her into the darkness...

She woke up in a cold sweat, gasping for breath. The nightmares assailing her regularly now, forfeiting several seconds' worth of sleep. She cried. She pulled her knees close up to her chest, the energy bed crowding around her waist. Her eyes buried in her knees, she bawled, letting all of the pain out that she'd felt through those dreams. She didn't know what they were for. What was happening to her? She checked herself. No, no, no, she commanded herself. It's simply a dream, she worded in her head. Subconscious things that couldn't hurt her. She inhaled deeply, and went back to sleep. Oh, how she was tired...

An alarm buzzed her awake rudely. She smacked it to shut it off. It was time she went to work again this morning, her life filled with a bitter monotony. Only Bob relieved her of such things, and gave her life a little meaning. Command.Com of Mainframe was a tireless and unforgiving job, and left little time for anything. She had six cycles worth of work ahead of her, and she had to make the best of any time she could put in. She had a dinner date with Bob that night. Smiling, she forgot the dream briefly in feeling the warmth billow from her chest. 

-

Inside the Principal Office, her fingers danced lightly over the panel as she watched her buildings course with energy and life. The empire she owned within Mainframe was in a state of prosperity, the citizens of Mainframe happy, feeling protected, Megabyte hidden in the web and Hexadecimal gently sated. She wondered if anyone else's life, in any other system, had such a happy parallel. The User was offering backups by the minute, and little else bothered her. Except-- she felt a pang. The logs she had read over. The name of her mother displayed on the screen flashed in front of her again, the words "User" in the race tag danced in front of her eyes. She grabbed the panel to keep from falling over from the vision. It scared her. A lot. 

Her shift put in, she decided to walk to the diner from the Principal Office, as it was so gorgeous it was nearly impossible to turn down putting some time in on the outside. She gaily strolled across the planks leading to the mainland, into Floating Point. There was a binome couple nursing a tiny baby there, and Matrix and AndrAIa were playing Frisbee with Frisket. She chuckled to herself as she passed them unnoticed. The renegade playing with his wife-to-be and Frisket. No other proof that the system was in a course of stability was necessary. AndrAIa and Big-Enzo had known each other since forever, and his experiences in the games had left him a changed sprite. He was even more thankful for the things he did have, such as AndrAIa's love and friendship. It hadn't been long ago that they'd been engaged, and Dot's heart bubbled over with joy at her brother's circumstances. Her pride in him kept her feelings of inadequacy in check about her and Bob. 

His experiences in the Web had left him reluctant to open up to her, as if to protect her from his memories. Dot learned to live and let be through him; her personality at times changed when she was around him. She felt like a different sprite. Not like the way she felt at work. When she was running the Principal Office with Phong by her side, helping her, mentoring her, she felt old. The pressures of her work seemed to age her. It little surprised her now how much Phong clung to that old copy of Pong, as he needed a little relief in his life as well. Around Bob, however, she felt like a little child. Shy, and quiet, and eager and happy all at the same time. She grinned, crossing the street beneath Baudway and turning towards the diner. 

Bob met her at the door, and hugged her tightly as she entered. Instantly, her tense muscles seemed to relax a bit. This was to be an interesting evening. 

Cecil was working in the backroom, and Dot snuck upstairs to her apartment where Bob had supper all ready for her and laid out upon the table. Even candles were shining on the table, the rest of the room dimmed. Soft music played. Dot giggled in spite of herself; she hadn't expected Bob to arrive early, let alone make supper for her. She hugged him again, and buried a kiss on his cheek in thanks. He just grinned, and motioned for her to sit down. 

"You deserved a break, Dot. Even Phong seems worried about how hard you apply yourself to the Principal Office, especially lately." 

"Bob, this .. was .. so sweet of you.." Dot struggled with the words, the warmth she felt bubbling out and catching her speech in its path. He gathered her in his arms and whispered reassurances in her ear as he felt her relax in his grasp. He smiled and rocked her gently from side to side. 

*BLAM*!

Both sprites leapt apart, heads turned in the direction of the sounding blast. It had been several seconds since the last game had dropped, and they couldn't imagine what the noise was. They hadn't heard the warning sound, and the sky was dimming a little bit from the dusk, but the deathly purple color hadn't washed across it. They both clamored down the stairs to the entrance and burst into the street where CPUs were already on their way to the glaring explosion that had just occurred. 

Dot and Bob grabbed their zip boards and sped along behind a CPU for cover, lest whatever caused the explosion still be volatile. A section of Baudway had been torn away by the blast, the binary stream spilling out onto the street. Bob put his hands in the modem's current and uploaded an error code to the modem, wondering vaguely why the system hadn't done it itself. Dot stopped in her tracks at the carnage that appeared below. 

The connection had been flooded, not a rare thing in Mainframe, being a small system. The rare thing was that the system's modem hadn't slowed transfer and the flood had caused a circuit overload, hence the explosion. That pointed fingers directly at her; she was the one responsible for configuring the error triggers on the modem. She was _certain_ they had been configured properly, but the CPU operators who sneered at her didn't think so. Four of their own had been torn apart in the blast, patrolling Baudway routinely. They had been blasted beyond recognition, their parts strewn halfway across the street before they deleted. Dot cringed, imagining the pain they must have felt. Even Bob stared at her, dumbfounded, probably wondering how such a thing could have happened. 

Dot's brain whirled. She hadn't touched the error triggers at the Principal Office, someone must have fiddled with them. An accident of this proportion had never occurred before in Mainframe, never before were so many binomes deleted in an accident of this kind. And to compound this problem, there was no virus to blame; Hex's thirst for chaos had been sated when her mask was defragmented, and Megabyte was presumed dead, a victim of the Web. She buried her face in her hands, determined not to let the growing crowd of binomes see her tears. She sped back to the diner, leaving the cleanup crew to finish their job.

She burst into her apartment, viewing the now-cold dinner Bob had so lovingly prepared for her, the half-burnt candles still lit. In a move of rage and fury, she swept everything off the table, the dishes clattering to the floor and breaking, the candles bouncing and going out. She kicked over the table and slumped against the wall, sobbing. How could she have _done_ this? She screamed at herself. A killer. That's what she was. She balled herself up on the floor, her pain and rage unparalleled until that moment. It was like this that Bob found her, sobbing, and like this that he attempted to comfort her. 

"Dot, it was just a freak accident.. nobody's fault.."

"Bob, please.. You know as well as I do that it was caused by faulty modem triggers.."

"Anyone could have reset them, Dot. They could have been set by anyone."

"It couldn't have been anyone but me and Phong. And Phong doesn't touch anything anymore," she sobbed. 

"It was probably just a mistake.. a mis-key when typing in the trigger codes. It's not your fault. You probably just set them too high by accident."

"Bob, they were practically disabled! The system didn't even issue an error when the binary was spilling out into the .. into Baudway.. those poor binomes!" She resumed her crying. 

Bob was twisting inside, his pain barely hidden by his calm front. He was faltering. "Dot.. please don't blame yourself.. it-- it couldn't have been your fault.." 

"And how couldn't it have been?! They were four of Mainframe's finest..." Dot slumped against the wall. 

"Dot, I don't believe that you're capable of killing like that. It was either an accident, or it wasn't you who touched the triggers." 

Dot sniffled. "I didn't- touch the-- triggers, Bob." 

He hugged her. "I believe you." 

She choked the words out again. "I-I-I-.. I feel like a killer."

He stroked her hair gently. Once she had calmed down again, and her breath no longer came in chokes and gulps, he asked her. "What is there to the rumors that you're part user?" 

She choked. "What?"

"There've been rumors flying about," he said, trying to act nonchalant. "I just.. was wondering. Where'd they come from?" 

She sighed slowly. He deserved to know at least. She spoke to him of the records, of that of her mother. What it said about her mother's race. How she didn't know how anyone knew; as far as she'd known only herself and Phong knew. 

Bob nodded and wiped a tearstain from her cheek. "So they are true."

"This doesn't change me at all. It bothers me. I wish it wasn't true." 

"What about Enzo?" Bob raised an eyebrow, as if he knew something Dot didn't. 

"I would assume he's .. part user too.. I didn't really check..." 

"He said he'd gone and done some research. Phong allowed him access to the files of his parents. His mother was not at User... Dot?"

Dot was staring off into space. 

"Dot?" he tried again. 

What was her name?" she mumbled at last. 

Bob paused for a moment, then spoke a name that Dot didn't recognize. 

"That's not my mother." 

"Are you sure, Dot?" 

"Of course I'm sure! What? Don't I know my own mother? Don't I know how to read?!" she was yelling, her insulted rage compounded with stress and lack of sleep causing her to lose her temper. Bob reeled. 

"I didn't mean that.. I j--"

"Yes you did!" she screamed again. 

"Dot, I--" 

Her eyes narrowed as she interrupted him. "Get. Out." she snarled.

Bob blinked. "Dot, you're not thinking rationally." 

"Did you hear me?" she sneered. "I said .. get out." The words pained her. 

Bob blinked as if he wasn't sure how to respond to what Dot had told him, then suddenly decided that it was wisest to obey Dot. He left her with a darkened apartment and a horrible mess of a dinner. Some date _that_ had turned out to be, he snorted as he left her apartment. He sighed, then jumped on his zip board to head back to his apartment. This was going to be a trying relationship. 

Dot grabbed her zip board and snuck out the back way, leaving the mess behind. This wasn't like her, but her curiosity got the better of her this time. 

She fumbled for a passkey to the P.O. and stumbled in, nearly slipping as she dashed around the corner towards the panel that held the newfound records. She punched in her passkey and waited as the list compiled. She checked her brother's record and scanned it closely for any information she'd overlooked before. There it was-- the unfamiliar name that Bob had spoken. Perhaps Bob had been right. Dot brushed her hair out of her eyes and checked the list. Surely enough, a name in blue that she'd ignored. The same name. Below the green one. She kicked herself mentally for flying into such a snit with Bob. She closed the list and opened the modem trigger codes, checking the modifying encryption code. Surely enough they'd been tinkered with using her encryption code. Had she been _that_ tired that she'd mistyped it, or entered values and not remembered? She shook her head, slumping against the panel, tears running down her face. "This has certainly been a productive second," Dot sobbed, thinking out loud. "When I thought I should make the most of my second I didn't mean that I cause deletions and alienate my friends!" 

And she and Matrix didn't have the same mother. This troubled her. Suddenly, the only family they had in common was their father. Perhaps her mother had died because she was a user, not being used to the environment around them? 

That night, the victim of a lot of thinking, she cried herself to sleep on the tiled floor of the Principal Office. 

---   
[Read Chapter 3][2]

Comments, Suggestions and Oh Do I Love Hate Mail:  
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[http://wrin.net/][4]

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   [2]: uprising3.html
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	3. Flying Daggers

The Uprising  
[By Wriness Chikaya][1]

Chapter 3 - Flying Daggers 

**_"Rolled him up in a nice clean sheet and laid him out upon the bed, a bottle of whiskey at his feet and a gallon of porter at his head" _**

Bob slumped against Dot's apartment door. Pulling his hair back over his skull, he sighed in exasperation. Dot was sleeping, or tired. Or wouldn't open her apartment for anyone. He cried. Or he wanted to. Nothing made him more aware of his attachment to her than when she isolated herself, and he too felt isolated. 

He trudged down the stairs and ordered himself an energy shake. The energy's warmth seeped out into his hand through the flimsy cup, and he stared into it intently, thinking. 

A couple of binomes clattered in, clearly sloshed, and Bob silently rolled his eyes at them. The drugs, the intoxicants people would take, the things they would do to their bodies in the name of a kick made him shake his head. His Guardian protocols ensured that he would stay away from anything that would damage his body; as a Guardian he had to keep his physical form in top conditioning.

The binomes stumbled around the tiled diner floor for awhile and then took seats, not forgetting to harass Cecil and kick Frisket, who had been sleeping soundly under the table which Matrix and AndrAIa occupied. They looked distastefully at the group of about three or four binomes that had stumbled into the diner. Matrix groped under the table for Frisket's collar, and wrapped his large fist around it tightly. 

Cecil hummed up to the table where the binomes sat and thunked their energy shakes down on the counter. Bob shuffled lower in his seat, determined to not be seen by the binomes. They chatted animatedly, slurring their words drunkenly. His ears pricked up at the sound of one name. Dot. 

One voice was gravelly and drunker than the rest. "..I dunno.. really.. hey? Like her bein' a user and *hic* all. Like.. what.. what's to say that she's not gonna like.. y'know. Try to hurt us or summin'." 

Another responded, almost as gravelly. "She's like.. threat to society or something. We'd .. do good. To .. you know..." 

The third voice sounded sober. "Delete 'er?" 

Bob's ears pricked up. He moved as to not make a sound, to hear them a little better. 

"Yeah," the second one responded. A long slurping sound ensued. Bob leaned in closer. The teal vinyl seat squeaked. He squinted over the seat to try and get a glimpse of the binomes speaking. "I dunno. Maybe we could like.. pull ... you *sluuuurrrrrrrrrrp* know," the second voice slurred. 

The first voice piped up again. "How r'we supposed to ... pull that off? Like... she's like.. Command.Com and stuff. She's ininvinidincible."

The third voice spoke again. "I think what you're talking about... is setting a trap." 

"Yeah!" chorused the other two binomes drunkenly. Bob leaned in the tiniest bit closer. 

Drunken cackling followed the chorus, followed by the metallic clunking of binome feet past Bob's table. He ducked under quickly in surprise as they walked past his table. He wished to stay hidden; had they seen him... he wasn't sure what they would have tried. But he knew it wouldn't have been beneficial to Dot's diner. That was one of the only pieces of stability in Dot's life at the moment. Bob remembered to see if he could identify any of the binomes, and peeked his head around just as the door swung shut. All he could see of the leader binome was a fabulous black afro. 

"Cyrus.. " he hissed. Immediately, he bolted out the diner door just in time to see three binomes fly away on zipboards at such a speed as to not get a clear view of them. He muttered a curse under his breath as he hopped on his zipboard and buzzed off towards the Principal Office. 

He folded up his zipboard and left it at the door, the zipboard making a clattering noise as it fell on the marble corridor. His boots made clicking noises as he walked around, trying to find Dot. "Dot?" he called, his cry echoing through the hallway. "Dot?" 

A whispering noise was heard from the other end of the hallway, followed by a few high-pitched beeps. Muttered curses were heard. Bob continued in the direction of the cursing. 

"Basic bloody _irritating_ stinking panel!" Dot whapped the map panel hard with her fist. 

Bob raised an eyebrow. "Dot? Everything alright?" 

Dot just continued muttering dark things at the panel. 

Bob, boots clunking on the marble floor, walked slowly over to where Dot was standing and passed a hand in front of her eyes. "You awake?" 

Dot's eyelids fluttered and she woke from her angry reverie. "Wh-oh uh hi, Bob." 

Bob raised the other eyebrow, then shrugged and shook off, remembering he had more important things to tell Dot. "I was in the diner today, Dot." 

"How long did it take you to figure out I wasn't in my apartment?" 

Bob blushed silently. "Awhile."

Dot smiled cynically.

"Dot.. they're after you.."

"I know," she muttered quietly, her fingers dancing across the smooth panel surface. 

"I saw Cyrus. He was talking about going after you." 

"I know." 

"How could you _possibly_ know that, Dot?" 

"Because I saw him too," she said, her eyes showing no emotion in her reflection on the panel.

"You _did_?" 

Dot nodded slowly. "He was talking to some CPU ops outside. They left with him to take a lunch break." 

Bob gawked at Dot. "Those drunken binomes in the diner were _CPUs_?!" 

Dot nodded slowly, eyes still glued to the panel. 

"Dot, they were going to delete you," Bob whispered quietly, eyes darting from shoulder to shoulder, ever-mindful that prying ears could be easily found. 

"I know," Dot whispered. 

Bob just stared at her, open-mouthed. "And there isn't a thing you're going to do about it?" 

"I'll be safe, Bob. I have a job to do." 

Bob shook his head, dumbfounded at Dot's display. 

"I'll be fine..." Dot repeated slowly, staring into Bob's eyes. 

Bob appeared ready to argue, then steadied himself. "I'll leave you alone for now then. Please call," he answered in a half-sated voice. 

Dot watched him whizz away on his zipboard and sighed. The big lunk worried about her so much. It was true, she had seen Cyrus leaving with some CPU ops, but she wasn't worried about it. She could hide herself at a moment's notice; even beyond the knowledge of Bob and the rest of Mainframe. All she had to do was tell Phong and he would cover for her. What else was there to worry about? 

She inputted her code to lock up the system for the night. As she went to leave the Principal Office, she heard an old voice.

"Dot?"

Dot turned in the direction of Phong's voice and checked her organizer. She could spare some time for her mentor. 

"Dot, help me with this command inventory please," Phong called. 

Dot clacked into the command file room where Phong was waiting. 

Where Phong didn't notice the binome huddled in the corner, clutching a gun. 

"What do you need help with, Phong? I only have a few microseconds," Dot said. 

The gunman was poised darkly behind one of the command cabinets, his gun poised on top of the cabinet itself, right at Dot's head level. "Stop moving..." he urged her silently. 

"Just this cabinet here," Phong scuttled toward one near where the binome was standing, and to be safe, he scooted over a bit to avoid detection. Unfortunately, he misjudged the balancing of the box he was standing on, and felt the box topple. 

And fall. 

And fall. 

His gun clattered down between the cabinets, firing one shot and one shot only. 

That one shot was enough. 

The binome grabbed the pistol and bolted out while Dot cried in hysteria over the shot Phong.

The old sprite's eyes faded to a dimness that Dot had only seen in the nearly-deleted, and Dot shook him gently. "Come on, Phong. You're going to be all right.. don't leave me, Phong.."

"Child.. it is time." 

Dot cried, her tears pouring themselves down her cheeks and dripping off her chin. "No, Phong! I can't do this without you!"

"Yes you can, child. I would not have given this to you had I not thought you ready for it," the old sprite's eyelids fluttered, but stayed open.

"No, Phong. You're going to live, that.. that bullet was meant for _ME_!" Dot smoothed her hand over the elder Command.Com's forehead while she held back sobs. 

"No, child," Phong gasped. "You must carry on. You -- are wise.." more gasps and rasps, he was clearly deleting by now. "You will be wiser.. far wiser .. than .. I .." 

"Phong.." Dot sobbed quietly. 

"Keep peace, my child." And with that, the old sprite breathed his last. And Dot's last tear fell, shattering into a thousand shards of ice on the tiled command room floor. 

[Read Chapter 4][2]

---   
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	4. Crushing Pop Cans

The Uprising   
[by Wriness Chikaya ][1]

Chapter 4 - Crushing Pop Cans 

**_"But the only soldier now is me and I'm fighting things I cannot see, I think it's called my destiny, that I am changing." _**

The tossing, the turning at night. The smell of burning. Even the motions of the clock on the wall had begun to annoy Dot, to irk her in those tiresome ways so common when one is depressed. 

She had hidden in Phong's egg-shaped room for nearly three minutes, thinking her thing over, turning thoughts over and over in her head until they came up just as ruddy and over-worked as her face and eyes. 

The furniture was tacky, and had a look of a prior era, one of orange and shag carpets. But more importantly, it smelled of Phong. 

She missed him much, like a child misses a parent. The simple things, though. Never the complex. She never totally realized until he was gone how much ground he did cover, even after he had 'retired' from being Command.Com. Dot lamented about how unfortunate it was that he had not had the chance to teach her gradually. 

Perhaps it was best that way. 

This stage did not last long, however, as Dot was a strong lady with a strong head on her shoulders. She soon grew tired of wallowing in self-pity, but still paining, did not exactly return to normal function. Bob took notice of this, as did everyone around her, though he was the first to speak. 

"Dot?" 

"Mm..." Dot hummed as she ran her gloved hands over the panel. She disliked touching the panel with her fingers now. It was always so _cold_. 

"Dot," repeated Bob, more sternly this time. 

"Mm..." came the same placid reply. She was shelling. Bob knew it. 

"Dot, you have to speak." 

"Do I, now," she replied absentmindedly. 

"Yes, you do." 

"Later..." she murmured. 

"No, Dot. Now." 

"Mm..." 

Bob grew slightly angry. She wasn't listening to him. He ran his hand down her arm and grasped her tightly above her elbow. He always held her gently, as if he was afraid she would break. This hurt him, somehow. 

He pulled her away from the panel gently, as if expecting her response to his touch as placid and docile as her responses to his words. To his minute surprise, he found her resistant. 

"Dot, look at me." 

This time she did not even honor him with a reply. 

He rested his hands gently on her shoulders and pulled her away from the panel. It was difficult for her to resist this movement, and to avoid falling over she followed his hands' path. 

"What do you want," she asked shortly. "I have work to do." 

"I want to talk to you," he said. Looking deeply into her eyes, he felt his insides move, as if the part of him that was Glitch was trying to tell him something. All was not well, that was for sure. 

"You're speaking with me right now, now would you please get what you have to say out already?" 

"I'm not talking to you, Dot, I'm talking to this hideous shell of a woman that I dare to call my --" he stopped himself short. 

"Your _what_?" Dot sneered. 

Bob felt frustration well up inside him and bubble out his gullet as words. "My -- _love_." he choked. 

Dot blinked. 

"It means nothing to you, does it? _**Nothing**_, does it?" Bob felt his teeth clench, his hand ball up into a fist. He felt his arms begin to shake slightly, and his neck feel somehow like his head was a lead weight. 

Dot remained totally speechless, staring into Bob's eyes blankly. 

"You. Don't. Care." he choked, slightly. _She just doesn't care_... his head resounded the words.. _doesn't care_.. _doesn't care_.. like an endless echo that hurts your ears and then echoes some more. 

He touched her cheek gently, trying not to cry. He was a Guardian, he was important and big and powerful he Must Not Cry. He _must not_, he commanded himself. 

She opened her mouth, eyes darting to some random point off in the lower left-hand distance. No words came out. 

"You didn't know, even. Did you." 

Dot's eyes darted to the other side, her mouth remained open. "I.." came the small burp of a word. She couldn't even form the words, for one simple reason. That the viscous bubbly warm feeling in her chest was taking shape, slowly, like wax. And she never wanted to know what it was, because instinctively she knew it would take work. 

Bob watched these thoughts, or their shadows, form inside her head. And on a whim, reached towards her, grasping her chin gently between his thumb and forefinger. He lifted her face gently towards his and kissed it, gently. A proper kiss. 

Dot's eyes widened briefly, then closed, then opened again as Bob leaned out of the kiss. She eyed him strangely. 

"... Get ... out?" she said, as if she didn't understand what she was saying. 

"Dot, talk to me. Don't shove me away. Don't sit here and wallow in yourself, in your depression and words. They're just words, Dot. Just _words._" 

Dot choked again. "Don't make me choose again, between things I don't understand and things I don't want to live through. Just let me do my own thing." 

Bob eyed her quietly, for the first of what was to be many times. "Dot, you're not the Dot I know. I hope you get through this." 

Dot brushed past Bob and clacked her way out of the office. Bob wasn't sure what to make of her movements, as the alarm bells in his head were going off nonstop, but he grabbed a zipboard from the corner of the room and followed her. 

She walked slowly, and with determination, and Bob had trouble keeping up to her without reverting to the pace of a run. She grabbed a zipboard at the exit of the principal office and started to punch in codes to open the doors when Bob grabbed her arm again, tighter this time. 

"Dot!" 

"_What_, Bob? _What_?" Dot nearly screeched at him. He held her hand fast, away from the control panels. 

"They're trying to kill you, Dot. It's dangerous out there." 

"I don't care, Bob. If they're trying to eradicate who I am, then maybe there's a reason for it." Dot's eyes rolled about in her head, as if she was full of intoxicants. Bob's stability flickered for a moment, enough to let Dot lunge forward and punch the first button on the access panel before Bob steeled his grip again to keep her hand away from the panel. 

"I won't let you out there, Dot! I don't want you dead! There's no reason for it. There's no way this could be normal. There's too many people going random. Going half-random.." Bob's voice trailed off. 

Dot raised her head to meet Bob's gaze. She felt his hand loosen around her wrist, but she didn't finish punching in the code. 

"I want you to promise me something, Dot. Please..." His voice trailed off into a mere breath. 

Dot remained silent, staring deeply into his eyes. 

"Promise me.. that you'll stay hiding .. wherever it is you've been hiding ... and don't come out until it's safe?" Bob's eyes had a pleading tint to them, as if something was reaching out from them and pulling Dot inside... 

She blinked for a moment, and that horrible nightmare of being eaten alive by darkness returned, and, if only for a moment, it was enough to make her cringe. 

There was a warmth, that billowed, no, _poured_ forth from her being, and spilled on the floor about Bob. She didn't understand what it was, but it made her feel elated. The elation in this situation was kind of uncalled for, however. 

She closed her eyes and pressed her palm against the wall, thinking. "Bob, I don't want to promise that. That's weak, and cowardly--" 

"And most importantly, safe," Bob cut in. 

A trace of frustration crossed Dot's face. She appeared ready to argue. Bob had other plans. 

"Promise me." 

Dot raised her eyes to his and felt them lock somehow. As if he'd reached inside her and held her emotions in complete check. The complex which ran her brain out of habit gave way to a giddy emotion built upon spontenaety. Before Dot knew what she'd said, Bob was gone and she had promised to stay inside the little egg-shaped room until the knight in shining armor had vanquished the evil. 

It all seemed too surreal to be true.

[Read Chapter 5][2]

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	5. The Elements

The Uprising   
by [Wriness Chikaya][1]

Chapter 5 - The Elements

**_"I've never wanted anything so bad." _**

Sharp implements littered the ashen wreckage. Never before had Bob seen such a mass of shrapnel in one place at one time, especially in Mainframe. It wasn't like the viruses even, to leave a mess of this magnitude. 

Most of the tiny, slummy sector had been destroyed in a terrorist effort to destroy the Command.Com. Bob couldn't understand their reasoning; but he understood the damage. An instinct had driven him here, and now he rooted through garbage to find a clue of some sort.

Black ash fell like snow, carpeting the pile of debris. He dug deeper, carefully, avoiding the pieces of shredded and shattered glass, the twisted metal, the chunks of sharp, heavy stone. 

Lifting away a mangled piece of metal, his eye caught something familiar, covered in ash and soot. He blew gently at the ash, not certain of what it was, not wanting to touch it. He leaned in closer, the small, circular object glinting dully. Flattening himself on his belly, he reached out with a shield box, the tiny grabber extending from the box and picking up the object. Bob pulled himself to his feet and examined the object in the light.

"Oh, User!" Bob breathed. The object he held in his hand was a scratched, dirty, broken icon. A _viral_ icon.

Bob closed the shield box, tossed it once in the air, and clipped it to his belt. He grabbed his zipboard; this was something Dot needed to know; that and the Principal Office's laboratory and testing equipment would be useful for figuring out which virus had infected this icon. Bob had his suspicions, but his training called for certainty.

His zipboard carried him swiftly off. 

-

Dot twiddled her thumbs, leaned forward over top of the control panel. The office was under lockdown, not one CPU had had the opportunity to get inside. This was probably to Dot's benefit; a fair amount of the terrorists in Mainframe were influential binomes; CPUs were no exception. 

She tapped her fingernails on the panel noisily. Being under lockdown was so _boring_.

She eyed the doorway. Maybe if she could.... 

"No," Dot reprimanded herself out loud. She had promised Bob that she would stay and she would stay. 

But the door was so tempting. 

-

The CPU turned around swiftly at the sound of beeping. All he saw was a humming blur as a dark, cloaked figure on a zipboard sped away from the Principal Office. He cocked an eyebrow at the blur, then resumed eating his lunch.

-

Dot buzzed through the city for the first time in at least a minute. It felt exhilarating to feel the wind against her face, to watch the buildings, _her_ buildings, fly by. To see the world again, after the darkness of being alone. 

She felt her heart twist inside. 

-

Bob slammed his fist against the marble wall of the main hallway. Where was Dot? Where could she _be_? Here, he held in his hand, one, count one, viral icon, containing the code none other than that which was not supposed to be. 

He pounded his fist on the wall again. Of all times to break a promise, why _now_? 

-

Dot's heart raced. A few binomes had taken a liking to her, and were following in a car. There was no way she was going to outrun them... oh, how she wished she'd listened to Bob now. 

She made a tight left turn around a building and hid behind the corner, peering cautiously around to see if possibly they had seen her. The grin on the binome's face that had taken the wheel was positively venomous.

Dot's eyes widened a fraction before she zipped off again, thinking over in her head the schematics of Mainframe she had studied day after day at the Principal Office. A bridge here, an underpass there, take this left turn here and she's -- 

"OMIUSER!" Dot squeaked as she nearly ran into a pillar. She dodged right, just enough for the zipboard to slip out from under her... 

-

Bob rumbled through Mainframe like a hamster on a hamster wheel, going around and around in wider and wider circles until he spotted a tiny green speck in the distance. 

"YES!" he cheered, but not for long, as Bob was privy to a perfect view of said green speck plummeting towards the streets of Mainframe at breakneck speed. 

"NO!" he yelled, and floored the gas in the old beater he called a car. He just hoped he'd make it there in time. 

-

Dot crossed her fingers and prayed, half-resigned to her fate. The wind singing in her ears, she was surprised to find herself landing in Bob's backseat! 

"Wh-wh- .. wha?" Dot blinked her eyes open, not totally believing she had survived. 

Bob crawled over the seat and clung to her, holding her head to his chest. She was shaking; out of shock, and out of fear; fear of what, Bob was soon about to find out. 

"There she is!" came the shout from the green car above them. Both heads in the old beater turned upwards, and Bob did a quick mental calculation of how long it would take to reach them. 

Likely not enough time to lose them; the old car may have been pretty, but it was anything but fast. 

Bob crawled over the seat and the car roared to life. He floored the gas and concentrated willfully on what he needed and wanted.. a desperate plea for help, yes, help for him, and help for his love. 

The green car gained steadily on them until Bob saw it fit to stop suddenly around a corner. Dot was puzzled, too puzzled to speak, but still obeyed Bob when he asked her to give him her hand. 

To her surprise, he grabbed her firmly by the forearm and swung her over the side of the car so that she dangled in midair. Her eyes rolling wildly about in her head, she squeaked out a question: "What the hell are you doing?!" 

"Do you love me?" was his response. 

Wondering what this had to do with the subject in question, the green car with seemingly random binomes in hot pursuit of their old beater, and now Bob's throwing her off the edge, she stammered out an answer. "Yes - I - uh I don't - Uh I don't know, Bob - Er.." 

Bob glanced at the green car, now nearly upon them. "Do you _love_ me?" he asked this time, more urgently. "Y-yes?" Dot answered, not certain as to whether or not this was the answer he was looking for. "I --" Bob cut her off. "Then live!" he declared, and with that, thrust her from the car and let go of her arm. 

-

Dot fell again, this time falling from within herself. She felt her personalities shift, her soul shift from her body, and wondered somehow if perhaps this was what it was like to be deleted. At least, until she caught herself in another back seat. This time, inside a vehicle with the word 'ship' crudely scrawled along one panel. 

"... Mouse?!" Dot gaped, shaken.

"Hun, I think yah need tah put a little more thought inta when and where tah break a promise." 

Dot pressed herself into the back seat of Mouse's ship and shivered. 

--

Several cycles had passed. Dot had remained huddled on the couch inside the egg-shaped room at the Principal Office, nearly catatonic the entire time. Bob had watched silently from another chair, but felt a tugging at him to examine the icon specimen. He withdrew slowly from the room, unclipping the protective shield box from his belt as he left. 

His boots clacked on the floor and he wondered how Dot could stand it here. So quiet, so lonely. Maybe that's why her job nearly drove her insane on some days.

Bob placed the icon from the box on a tray cartridge and slammed the cartridge into a piece of the Principal Office's diagnostic equipment. He tapped a few keys on the panel in the darkened room, the glow from the screen dully illuminating his face. 

The date of initialization wasn't anything to gape at, but the approximate date of viral infection sure was. Bob scrolled through the code three or four times just to make sure he had it right. According to its initialization strings, they had been modified probably about a minute and a half ago. 

Not terribly long after strange things began happening to Dot. 

Bob blew a breath between pursed lips and drew his hair across over his forehead in dismay. He clacked a few more commands at the terminal and the screen scrolled to something else entirely. A closer look at a dissection of the initialization strings, and the commands used to modify them. 

The viral code was a little messy, thrown together half out of habit and half out of over-confidence. Bob squinted at the screen and scrolled through a little bit until his eyes bugged out... 

"Oh my User," he breathed.. "This is not good. This is .. not .. good at all..." 

[Read Chapter 6][2]

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	6. Nicer Shoes

The Uprising  
by [Wriness Chikaya ][1]

Chapter 6 - Nicer Shoes 

**_"A thousand other boys could never reach you; how could I have been the one?" _**

Perhaps it had been the experiences of the seconds previous. Perhaps it had been the cycles about to come. Perhaps it had been the stress of the situation at present. 

All that came to be public knowledge about Dot was that she was in seclusion. People had no idea where, save for her trusted friends. Even then, Bob was the only one she ever let inside the Principal Office. 

She spent her nights hugging her knees tightly, the hot tears stinging her face. She could almost feel them turning to frost on her cheeks; she felt like a killer. She hadn't done anything consciously, but the trauma of losing trusted CPUs as well as a trusted friend in a short time frame had left Dot more catatonic than anything else. She worked spasmodically, if she worked at all.

The panels felt cold even through her gloves now, everything felt cold. The soft, overstuffed couch in her egg-shaped room had begun to harden to her touch, as if the lack of emotion she let out forced it to somehow lose its comfort as she lost hers. 

It was truly the only way Dot could appear strong in front of Bob at a time like this; Bob had explained to her the night after she left the Principal Office the last time his rough theory on what had been happening. Truth be told, she either didn't understand, or she simply hadn't heard him. It felt some days as if the cold air wrapped itself around her like a blanket, and she couldn't help but think if that was perhaps what the oblivion felt like to Phong... 

Bob knew these thoughts were inside her. He couldn't explain it, he just _knew_. As if he knew her so well he could see through portals, straight into her code, straight into the way her processes ran. He could almost pick apart the tiny spasms of thought that so marauded her dreams. It was all he could do to touch her now; she always seemed distanced from her reality. As if, in fact, she was losing hope, believing that she was capable of such killings as those which had occurred recently in Mainframe. Bob, however, knew different. 

He knew that Dot was not capable of the veritable genocide which had been occurring. The "accidents" were hardware malfunctions, that was certain, and they led many binomes to fiery deaths. Bob somehow couldn't believe they were Dot's fault however, as seeing her sit day after day in seclusion without touching a control panel led Bob to believe they weren't her changes.

Dot, however, seemed to have become resigned to her fate. The thoughts which ran through her head intermittently throughout the second painted a dark thundercloud over her head, or at least they seemed that obvious to Bob. And what made his motor churn over this dilemma was that he couldn't do anything about it. 

The viral code sample he had found gave him a decent clue as to who was behind the operations; the part that would take the expert planning was the capture and/or the defeat of that who was directly involved, as apparently, their adversary was not as weak as they had previously surmised. 

This worried Bob slightly, keeping in mind the amount of difficulty they had had previous with their disposal.

-

These thoughts hummed in a viciously repeating circle through Bob's head all while he zipped across Mainframe, surveying for activity proving his theory. He neared the Silicon Tor, which didn't exactly seem to be bustling with activity, but in all technicality, shoudn't really have been moving at all. 

Bob lowered himself onto the top lip of the Tor and peered down through the hole in the roof. The entire time he couldn't shake the feeling that he was in danger, but danger was keeping itself coiled. 

"You said thirty credits, and I want my thirty credits," one familiar voice said. Bob narrowed his eyes and flattened himself further against the lip.

"Twenty-five," insisted a deeper voice. 

"Thirty." 

Megabyte laughed; a deep, carousing laughter that comes only from the undiscovered and the criminally insane. "It will be twenty-five," he stated finally, lilting his speech with a frost of authority. "Rumor-spreading in a small system is hardly a feat worth an extra five credits."

"We orchestrated a deletion, my lord. I do believe twenty-five credits is slim pickings for such an operation." 

"I don't," the virus's voice boomed calmly, "Especially with the effort still required to overthrow Ms. Matrix." 

Bob couldn't believe he was hearing this; the virus, recently escaped from the web with little sign of decay, and one of society's underlings hammering it out again.

"Twenty-five credits then. But I'm still guaranteed a job?" 

"Indeed." 

Bob began slow, calculated movements to move himself off the lip of the Tor; he had heard enough safely for one second; it was best to move out. 

>click<

Bob blinked quickly. He had only one chance to get a message to Dot; with an EMP rifle pressed firmly in the back of his neck, he didn't have much of a chance either. 

Bob reached back in one quick, swift motion and shoved his attacker off, sending the smaller binome sprawling across the roof of the Tor. This, unfortunately, caused a lot of noise, making him likely to be discovered. 

He reached over and grabbed his communications device from his belt, speaking quickly into the reciever. "Dot, I'm at the Tor and Megab--" 

>THWACK!<

Bob watched in horror as the communicator sailed down the top opening of the Tor and landed squarely on the concrete floor, shattering, never to speak again. 

>click<

"This time, guardian, you are coming with me."

Bob felt the rifle charge, and knew he couldn't argue. Shackles were placed roughly around his wrists, and a vest fitted around his chest. He could feel Glitch within, powering down by force. 

- 

Dot heard the shrill squawk of the incoming message notification from across the Principal Office. It was a debate whether or not to get up and retrieve it, and finally decided she needed to move. The circulation in her legs had begun to cease gradually, and her eyes hurt from a dryness brought on only by incessant rivulets of tears. 

She tapped the retrieve button lightly, and the window that greeted her was shocking. The icon displaying "Sound Only" decorated the front of the viewscreen while the sounds she hated to hear spewed from it.

"Dot, I'm *crackle* the Tor and Megab--"

Dot shivered, then played it again.

"Dot, I'm *crackle* the Tor and Megab--"

Dot felt the seperation of layers she had been experiencing for cycles vanish instantly. She narrowed her eyes sinisterly. "Megabyte..." she hissed. "Perhaps it's time you met some of my friends..." 

[Read Chapter 7][2]

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	7. Squeeze

The Uprising   
[By Wriness Chikaya][1]

Chapter 7 - Squeeze

**_"You are the radio star.."_**

Dot pressed her hands against the buttons of the panel. The coldness vanished briefly. But only briefly.

The vidwindows showing schematics of the Tor were her only companion. The sensors that allowed her such a view of the Tor were a blessing, indeed, but the fact that she could still not view the energy signatures moving about inside made things difficult.

She was in the process of formulating a plan. A sketchy, penciled plan, as of yet crudely formulated. Dot would need help. She needed Phong.

Sadly, that help was exactly what she lacked. Her biggest problem was how to get from the Principal Office to G-Prime and thus the Tor without being seen. She would have to wait for night time, but still, her zipboard would not provide much transportation.

Nobody else could take the risk of being seen with her either, and that was a problem in itself. She smashed her fist against a vidwindow, which bounced backwards and forwards to its original position upon impact.

"User damn it all!" she yelled. It was difficult enough not knowing where to turn, or not having anywhere to turn. If the situation had been much different, she would have called in her brother, or AndrAIa, or hell, even Mouse. She might be able to break through the software shielding that was keeping the innards of the Tor hidden from Dot.

But her friends were under some degree of fire as well. Them moving around, anywhere, especially to the PO, would have called a lot of attention. If there was one thing Dot could not afford to call, it was attention. It could mean her death. Or the death of one close to her. If she could take out Megabyte without anybody else's help, all the better.

No.

For Dot, that was a price far too steep. The death the situation at present had already caused problems enough. She wouldn't call attention to another part.

As these thoughts ran their chorus through her head, she heard a shrill squawk from the communicator again and fairly leapt out of her chair to answer it.

"Dot Meg*crackle* not at *crackle* he's *crackle* the diner..."

The message was short. Sound-only again. Dot wondered the kind of effort it had taken Bob to send it. But that wasn't important right now. She hit a few keys, in an effort to optimize it.

"Dot, Megabyte *crackle* not at the *crackle* he's at the diner..."

"That's IT!" Dot yelped. Perhaps that was part of the reason Dot couldn't place Megabyte's signature, or Bob's. She was looking in the wrong place!

The more she thought about it, the more perfect it seemed. Nobody frequented the diner anymore. Her friends knew she wasn't to be found there. The city binomes who didn't know Dot very well pretty much avoided the place. Cecil had shut down as a result. She could barely believe he had thought of it, so little was her respect for his train of thought.

-

Bob wriggled one shackle up towards his elbow, then past his elbow with a great pinching pain. It was difficult, but it would be enough to get the communicator on his wrist out of the field of the restraints.

He whispered hoarsely into the communicator, huddled in the corner of his cell. He hoped to User the binome guard with his EMP rifle didn't hear...

"Dot, Megabyte's station is not at the Tor, he's at the diner... I'm still at the Tor..."

The little light on the communicator dimmed, an indication that the field of the restraints was increasing its power. He only hoped that the message made it to Dot.

The guard marched across the front of the cell, ominously, and Bob's mind flashed briefly to the scenes of Megaframe he had once seen.

-

Dot hummed towards Baudway and her diner in the dark of night. She prayed she wouldn't be seen, though it wasn't likely she would be.

She whispered a few words into a communicator on her lapel. She couldn't help but hope that he came in time to cover her.

She stepped into the dimmed diner. Boxes littered the floor, the posters on the walls peeling. Some of the seats had begun to crack from cold. Dot frowned. That her haven could become so decrepit had a lot to do with the way she cringed when she saw it.

She turned slowly, feeling a pair of glowing eyes bore their way into her back. A muscle in her jaw jumped, more out of hatred than surprise, as she realized she was face to face with the infamed virus himself.

"Well, Ms. Matrix. I must admit, I wasn't entirely surprised to see you arrive here sooner or later."

She sneered, her emotions getting the better of her. She couldn't lunge. She had to wait. There was no way she was going to take him on her own...

He smiled. A cold, sinister smile. "Oh, Ms. Matrix. How delightful it will be to infect you..."

Dot took this to be her chance. As he stepped towards her, she slithered around him. The confined space left his speed advantage with some to be desired, as she had a lot of dexterity that his body lacked. She appeared cornered behind the counter, and as he jumped at her venomously, claws extended, she clambered over the counter and did a shoulder roll on the tile floor. He crawled over the counter and if she hadn't known that the tables could be pulled easily off the wall, she would have been trapped underneath the table.

She jumped up, and the table swung upwards, hitting Megabyte in the chin. He staggered backwards, and she used this opportunity to crawl over to another corner of the diner. Her plan, to circle him until help arrived.

It worked out well for the most part, until one mis-calculated leap over the counter. Her boot caught on the lip closest to the back wall. She fell, her ribcage smashing on the opposite lip as she somersaulted over the counter. The virus leapt across the counter with well-placed ease, and picked her up by the neck. Dot was helpless to struggle.

"Actually, I believe I'll just delete you instead of infecting you," the frustrated virus mused. Dot kicked at him helplessly as he pressed her up against a wall with one fist, extending his other arm behind him, extending his claws...

"Hey!" came a shout from the door.

The virus turned.

"I should have killed you when I had the chance," the voice said as AndrAIa's trident flew at Megabyte, catching him around the waist and pinning him against the wall, writhing in agony.

Dot collapsed on the floor where Megabyte had dropped her. However cold she had felt alone inside the Principal Office, his touch was colder.

She stood up slowly, her brother holding the trident into the wall while Megabyte struggled against it. She looked him square in the eyes. "So you killed all those people," she said calmly, coldly. "You're responsible for this. And then you blamed it on me."

Silence.

She kept her gaze locked on his until turning as if to leave. She turned back quickly and spat in his face. "Filth," she hissed before turning away. Megabyte's eyes narrowed as he lay against the wall, impotent to wipe the venom from his face.

Matrix walked up to Megabyte slowly, withdrawing Gun. He pressed the barrel squarely into the virus's stomach, and pulled the trigger.

>*BLAM*!

One shot, and the fabled red pupils of Megabyte's eyes faded as his lifeblood pooled around his lifeless feet.

Dot appeared somewhat satisfied, then a look of darkness crossed her face. Matrix turned towards her. "What..?" he questioned cautiously.

"Where's Bob?"

Matrix's face fell. "He's not in here, is he."

Dot shook her head solemnly. She stepped outside the building, looking it over. She turned to Matrix for a moment. "He's likely still at the Tor, and where, I don't know," she paused. "... We'll need Mouse."

Matrix nodded his acknowledgement slowly. They had to get back to the Principal Office. "Sis?"

"What, Enzo.." Dot sighed.

"I don't care how separated we are by blood or by genetics. You're a sister to me."

Dot smiled faintly. They were welcome words.

"Dot?"

"Yes, Enzo?"

"What are you going to do with the Diner now?"

Dot eyed the door. The cracked glass, covered in graffiti. The peeling posters on the inside, Megabyte pinned against the wall. She picked up her zipboard and hopped on.

"Torch it. And make sure not even the ashes remain," she said as she began to move towards the Principal Office.

[Read Chapter 8][2]

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	8. Catharsis

The Uprising   
[By Wriness Chikaya][1]

Chapter 8 - Catharsis

**_"Let me say things about you make you think you're losing your mind, but try to turn you up, don't you think twice about it, stay strong, you must fight it; you've got to carry on.. and life goes on and on and on.."_**

Dot sped away from Baudway on her zipboard, noting that Matrix and AndrAIa were following after her. She needed everyone she could get at the Principal Office, and she needed them NOW.

The doors blew open with her entrance, the lights inside still left on. Everything had the order of chaos; seemingly lacking an order entirely, but to ask Dot to find something, any one thing in that immense place, she knew exactly which line, which section, of which file in which folder in which cabinet to find it.

Mouse was waiting for them by the door, and followed everyone in. Dot had warned her of their needs for her aid on the way back to the Principal Office; the risk of being detected was negligible at this point.

Mouse didn't skip a beat. She jumped into the desk chair, which slid sideways to a panel with a large keypad on it. Her hands moved furiously across the glass panel, code and binary, various languages and algorithms floating past the windows which popped up at breakneck speed. This was how Mouse worked, always. Never a user-interface, what did you need a user-interface for? A user interface neglected to show you the things behind the surface; the tiny little carfully hidden exploit was all that Mouse needed..

"Dot, dearie?" Mouse called sweetly from her post.

"Yes, Mouse?" Dot sidled up.

"What exactly _are_ we lookin' for, sugah? ..."

Dot chuckled. She had to. If she didn't relieve stress, she was going to scream her way into the egg-shaped room and never come out. "Bob, Mouse.."

"Well Ah _know_ that, Dot, what Ah'm talkin' about is _where _we're gonna be lookin'." Mouse spun around in the chair.

"Try the Tor. Last time he contacted me, it was from the Tor.. or .. I hope it was.."

"Ya mean ya don't know, Dot."

"... Yeah. I don't, really."

"Well then just _say_ so! It's so much more fun that way!" Mouse grinned, a twinge of glee audible in her voice as she happily spun around and hacked around Mainframe, milking the sensors for the last bit of information they could offer. "Ah-HA!" she yelped, and piped the information to a high-resolution vid-window in front of Dot. A detailed schematical map of the Tor, showing binome, sprite, and viral presences.

"Mouse, I think I love you," Dot said as she downloaded the map to her organizer.

"Hun, you can reserve that for later. Right now we've got to worry about Bob."

Dot nodded her agreement, and proceeded to study the map. It appeared that Bob was in a holding cell of some sort, in the lower levels of the Tor. The problem? There were viral binomes guarding all the entrances. Lots of binomes. Dot hung her head, wondering how in the Net they were going to get inside, and get Bob out, preferably without alerting the binomes. Then, she thought, perhaps if she got the viral PIDs...

Her thoughts were interrupted by a sudden cackle from Mouse. Its abrupt stop made Dot wonder even further.

"Oh, blessed User, Dot.. Ah almost can't believe this.."

Dot rumpled her eyebrows and stepped up behind Mouse for a closer look at the screen Mouse must have been referring to. On it was the html code from the Twin City files, decomposed into its base code.

"How didja find out that you were a User, Dot?" Mouse turned slightly so she could see Dot's answer.

"Phong managed to recover some citizen profiles from the Twin City. Mine listed my mother as a User." Dot raised an eyebrow and took off her glasses, leaning in closer to see what Mouse meant.

"Well, sugah, you're gonna find this either really funny, or you're gonna wanna lay down and have a good cry," Mouse said as she pointed out a few binary lines that made up the decomposed meta tags. It was official; the files were faked. Megabyte's encrypted signature was evident on the entire archive.

Dot sat there speechless for a moment. Motionless, as if in suspension between a critical breaking point. The calm before the storm, so to speak.

Mouse knew the storm was thundering when Dot's hand tightened frighteningly on the back of the desk chair and a muscle jumped in her jaw.

So much pain... so much anger...

She had known that Megabyte had caused the 'accidents'. What so infuriated her was that, when it came to the thought that perhaps the files from the Twin City were fakes, she hadn't even considered it. She wanted, no, _needed_ to believe her history was still out there.

Mouse saw Dot chiding herself for being so naive. She reached over and gently touched Dot's hand. "Dot, darlin' ... don't blame yourself.."

Dot's hand relaxed, and she went into business-mode. "The way I figure it, we could get Bob out of the Tor without hurting anybody. I want all those binomes returned to their uninfected states. There is to be no more carnage while I'm heading this operation." Dot's lips were set in a firm, cold line. Mouse raised an orange eyebrow. "What?" Dot asked.

"You sure you don't want us to go get Bob for ya?" Mouse cringed.

"I'm going with you."

Mouse nodded in acceptance. Dot brought up an image of the map on her organizer.

"Let's get goin' then! Ain't no viral scum gonna be messin' up my cycle."

-

Matrix clutched AndrAIa in the back of Mouse's Ship. Dot felt her hands grow colder and colder; a secret fear telling her perhaps her hands would never warm...

It was relatively easy to get inside. The problem was getting inside without being seen. The four tiptoed down a curiously insectlike looking hallway, when a viral guard spotted them. AndrAIa managed to knock him out before he could cry out.

"Mighty fine fingernails ya got there, hun, gonna have ta' see if Ah can get mah hands on somethin' like them later..." Mouse mused.

It was the EMP rifle Dot spotted in the hands of the guard that had Dot on edge. Matrix handled that conveniently; Dot hid in an alcove in the hallway while the three of them distracted the binome and managed to lure him out of the room, and far away from an area where Dot would be spotted, or heard trying to get out.

Dot snuck her way into the tiny concrete room to find herself face-to-face with Bob. He smiled warmly at her, as if he had been expecting her arrival. She managed eye contact before diving at the panel which was keeping him locked away.

She pounded out code after code.. nothing worked. Prodding Bob for hints, he could tell her very little. She tried random sequences of letters, words, names of everyone she could remember. Dot was about ready to give up, when in a flash, her dream came back to her.

She was running again. Her breathing was ragged, and dry again, as dry as her forehead was wet with sweat. She looked back behind her, and watched as a contorted and twisted version of Megabyte leaned towards her, stretching its arm. "Your fears, Dot..." the vision rasped, like a demon come to take her very soul. She ran on.

Somehow he kept following, though she never really saw him move. He was consuming all, enormous, yet seeming like he should be small. All was the same though; he didn't look exactly as he looked in real life. She looked back again as he stretched the other arm towards her.. "Your fears, Dot..." he rasped again, and Dot closed her eyes with a sob as she pleaded for this wretched hallucination to end.

She stopped, seemingly rooted to her spot, and felt him curl around her like a mist. She could feel his cold tendrils wrap themselves around her arms and hold her down, feel them strangle her of breath. A hot, sour breath was pressed in her face. "You think you run your life?" it screamed. "You don't run your life. I run your life!" Dot sobbed and turned her face away. The face breathed again, this time venomously, and Dot choked on the poisonous words. "Your work breathes with you. I breathe with you. Your hatred for me is what has kept you going! It is what keeps me going!"

Dot writhed in agony at the way the words made her feel, the fact that this breaking point was shoving her off a ledge she knew she wouldn't be able to scramble back up on to again, and that, in turn was destroying the feelings that an hour of peace had left her with. She squirmed at the movements of the misty tendrils, suddenly like ice, cold and restricting...

"Your fears control you, Dot. That control is what leaves you so dead, so empty after a day. Bob is your solace! But I stole him from you!" an echoing chorus of maniacal laughter ensued, the voice not wholly Megabyte's, but scarily, intertwined with the tones of her own as well. She shuddered deeply, opening her eyes with a cringe, the cold tendrils of mist slipping away, the burn of the red pupils into her retinas beginning to fade. One phrase echoed in her mind. "I control you..."

"Control," she spoke aloud, punching that into the keypad next to the force field keeping her from Bob. She nearly collapsed against the wall when the force field shimmered and melted away. She fairly leapt into the cell, hugging Bob and kissing him frantically on his neck. She sobbed hard.

"Bob.. I.. oh.. User.." she gasped, clinging to him. Tears fell shortly from her face. She cried even harder as he wrapped his arms around her as best he could and whispered warm words into her hair. "I-- Bob.. I .."

He stroked her hair gently, then grasped her chin and moved her face to look into her eyes. "Dot, you're going to have to get me out of these shackles. The key .. it's in the top drawer on the desk over there.. can you get it for me?"

Dot nodded quickly, wiping tears from her face and sniffling loudly. She stood up shakily and opened and shut drawers in a frantic until she found a small metallic object, adorned with a simple blue button.

She sprinted back to the cell and knelt on the floor, her hands shaking. She pressed the pointed end of the metallic piece into a hole in the neck collar of the elaborate restraint device, and pressed the button. With a loud _click_, the chest restraint opened up, allowing Bob to take it off. Dot collapsed in his arms again, sobbing hard.

"I- I- I can't .. Bob.. I love you.."

"I love you too, Dot.. it'll be okay," he whispered as he stroked her hair.

She held up the metallic piece again, pressing it into the wrist shackles, hands shaking, feeling the relief the _click_ of the release brought him.

While she undid the shackle on his right arm, she muttered something.

"Bob, will.." it was so quiet it was nearly incomprehensible.

Bob leaned in gently and caressed her face in his hand. She stared into his golden eyes, feeling him wipe away a tear with a gritty hand. "Bob, I .. don't want to sound sappy.. or .. over-eager... I want this to sound right.."

She unlocked the other shackel and he lifted his other hand to hold her nose to his, and in kissing her, he felt her mumble something. Pulling back, he held her in his hands again. She blinked softly in his grasp, and to Bob, she had never been more beautiful.

Hair disheveled, face dirty from his grasp, tearstains streaking her smooth skin. He saw her blink and stare at the floor, as if she didn't know what to say. "I'm not going to draw this out into a long monologue. The times.. without you there.. " she sniffled a little bit. "Well, they've seemed to me like the longest times I've had to live through in my entire life. Even the times after my parent's death didn't seem so long. I'm rarely truly happy. But, I know one thing.. and that's that.. I'm happy when I'm with you."

Bob clutched her close and whispered into her shoulder. "Dot, you don't have to say it.."

"No," she said, pushing him away, "I do. This is my opportunity at happiness and I don't want to blow it. Bob, I think I'd like to grow old with you." She looked up at him, gazing him straight in the eyes. A fresh tear trickled down her cheek. "Will you marry me? Please? ..."

Bob grabbed her tightly, hugging her closer than he ever had. Gripping her through her uniform, he prayed she didn't notice the tear that trickled down his cheek. "Of course I will, Dot. Of course..."

Mouse was the one who looked in first, seeing the couple clutching each other, kneeling on the holding chamber floor. "Ah don't know what you're up to you two, but Ah've got about six virals on mah tail and if ya don't feel like bein' deleted, Ah humbly suggest that yah move yah bitmaps!"

The couple scrambled to their feet, Dot wiping the tears from her face.

Dot could feel something though. The sense of falling off her ledge of comfort was distubing, but she felt something better, something she hadn't felt for a long time. Leaning against Bob's chest, in the belly of Ship, Dot knew a feeling she hadn't felt for a long time.

She felt whole.

[Read Chapter 9][2]

---   
Comments, Suggestions, and Oh Do I Love Hate Mail   
[animalspeaker@home.com][1]   
[http://wrin.net/][3]

   [1]: mailto:animalspeaker@home.com
   [2]: uprising9.html
   [3]: http://wrin.net/



	9. Denouement

The Uprising   
By Wriness Chikaya 

Chapter 9 - Denouement 

**_"And she, a punk who rarely ever took advice..." _**

Bob looked up at Turbo, holding a large book in his hands. The binding made creaking and cracking noises as the prime Guardian shifted his weight. Bob felt his knees go weak, and he said the two promising words. "I do." 

"You may now kiss the bride," Turbo grinned. Bob gently lifted the crinoline veil hiding Dot's face partially, and brushed away a tear it had been successful in hiding as well. She reached up, he leaned down gently, and when they connected, the camera flashes went wild. 

Dot felt shivers go up and down her spine, it was official now. 

Bob was home, and so was she.

-

It took time for the rumors to dispel themselves, but as the myth surrounding Enzo's early Guardian status eventually disappeared, so did this. There were, of course, a few individuals not capable of making the shift, though they had been so capable of making it when it meant public defamation for Dot, and there were a few CPU operators dismissed as a result. It saddened Dot to see them go, but it seemed meant to be.

The feeling of emptiness had left her slowly, but surely, as if somewhere there had been a leak inside her which allowed her pain to drain out. The stress gradually poured out of her life, and she began to relax, realizing that what she really needed was to be a little child sometimes. 

The vision of Megabyte never totally left her; she always retained its base point, at least when her work came into play. Sometimes, when you involve yourself too much, you stop controling the situation and the situation begins to control you. 

Dot leaned forward on her bed, Bob passed out asleep beside her, one arm stretched towards her side, reaching for her touch. She felt the blankets bunch around her waist as she stared off into space, or rather, into a space sacred to her. 

The face of the sage old sprite, Phong, her friend. The picture framed on her wall. Next to that of her parents' picture. It seemed right to Dot. 

"Dear, old Phong," she began, the day's turmoil briefly melting away for her to have a chat with her friend. "What would you say if you could see me now. I'd hope you could be proud..." 

She shifted slightly on the bed, a chill making her steal some blankets from Bob. He shifted a bit, and then rolled over. Dot almost giggled in spite of herself. He was so childlike sometimes. 

"My life is seemingly better than perfect, old friend. My only missing point is that you are not here to counsel me." Here, she paused to wipe away a tear. "Though somehow with your picture on the wall there, you're somehow still here to me. 

"I ask of you really only one thing, is that, if you can, please keep an eye on Matrix and AndrAIa. Especially my little brother... he deserves something nice in his life for once. And that sprite he's so attached to seems the very thing he deserves, at least it does to me..." 

Dot sighed and laid down on her back. Times had changed, in a matter of cycles, the powers had again shifted themselves. She shifted in the bed, feeling Bob's inert arm almost instinctively curl around her. She smiled herself to sleep. 

--- 

**_See myself in the pouring home   
See the light come over now   
See myself in the pouring rain   
I watch hope come over me _**

_**Here we are now, going to the east side  
I pick up my friends and we start to ride   
Ride all night, we ride all day   
Some may come and some may stay**_

_** Here we are in the pouring home   
I watch the light man fall the comb   
I watch a light move across the screen  
I watch the light come over me **_

_**Here we are now going to the west side  
Weapons in hand as we go for a ride  
Some may come and some may stay  
Watching out for a sunny day where there's**_

_** Love and darkness and my sidearm   
Hey, elan**_

_** Here we are now going to the north side  
I look at my friends as they start to ride  
Ride at night we ride all day  
Looking out for a sunny day**_

_** Here we are now going to the south side  
I pick up my friends and we hope we won't die   
Ride at night, ride through heaven and hell   
Come back and feel so well. **_

**Moby - Southside [_Play_] **

-Epilogue- 

Matrix walked into the abandoned diner, searching for AndrAIa's trident. "Damnit, I could have sworn I left it still stuck in the -- What the --!" Matrix's breath caught in his throat.

He reached down and touched the trident, still slick with viral energy.

"You fscking VIRUS TRASH!" Matrix bellowed, enraged._ Defeated again._ The insult bubbled. And hate flowed.


End file.
